SANTA CRUZ – Two armed men robbed a medical marijuana dispensary just after 7 p.m. Thursday. Employees inside the dispensary on the 3100 block of Paul Sweet Road reported that two armed men burst into the business wearing clown masks and sporting guns. They got away with an unknown amount of money from the safe. No one inside the business, Creme de Canna, was reported injured, the Santa Cruz Sentinel reports. Police are looking for two Latino males, ages 15 to 20, thin build. One had a single-action revolver, the other had a small Beretta, [...]
Feb 032012
SANTA CRUZ — A soft drink laced with the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, a tsunami that swept through the Santa Cruz Small Craft Harbor and a woman arrested on suspicion of throwing a duck were just a few of the stories that captured online readers’ attention in 2011. The Santa Cruz Sentinel website averages more than 400,000 unique visitors each month, and the top story of the year about Canna Cola was viewed more than 150,000 times since it appeared in January 2011, Stephen Baxter reports. Canna Cola, a soft drink aimed at medical marijuana [...]
SANTA CRUZ — The county has yet to issue a permit under a new set of regulations aimed at medical marijuana operations, and already the law has been thrown into doubt. A state appeals court in Los Angeles last week handed down a decision that raises questions about any local effort to regulate the medical marijuana trade, saying federal drug laws invalidate any licensing of dispensaries and collectives — something many Bay Area governments have tentatively started to do. Local attorney Ben Rice, who represents several marijuana collectives, said he doesn’t expect any immediate impact [...]
Cloud of smoke. That’s what the chaotic mess surrounding medical marijuana has become, Santa Cruz Sentinel Editor Don Miller writes in the paper’s Sunday editorial. This week, federal prosecutors began a move against a select number of dispensaries in California, warning them to either shut down or face criminal charges and possible confiscation of their property. The new crackdown so far has not hit Santa Cruz County, but creates a new climate of uncertainty in a movement almost constantly embattled in the 15 years since voters legalized medical marijuana in California. The reasons why the [...]
WATSONVILLE — A 19-year-old Watsonville man was arrested Friday night with marijuana packages from Granny Purps, one of two Santa Cruz pot dispensaries burglarized early Friday, the Santa Cruz County Gang Task Force reported. Members of the Gang Task Force conducted a probation search at Ruben Garcia’s home on the 1100 block of Amesti Road in Watsonville about 7:50 p.m., inspector Mario Sulay said in a statement. Investigators knocked on the front door and saw Garcia run to the back of the house with a large plastic bin, Sulay said. Investigators chased and detained Garcia, [...]
SANTA CRUZ — Two men will be tried on charges they robbed a Los Angeles man of marijuana, killed him and dumped his body off a North Coast cliff, a Santa Cruz Superior Court judge decided Thursday. After a preliminary hearing this week, Judge Paul Marigonda ruled there was enough evidence to try Adam Hunt and Kenneth Clamp on charges of robbing, kidnapping and murdering Elias Sorokin. Nick Sorokin, the victim’s father, said outside court Thursday he was pleased with the judge’s decision, Stephen Baxter reports in the Santa Cruz Sentinel. “I miss Elias greatly,” [...]
Scotts Valley police arrested a woman who attempted to ship a pound of marijuana to Massachusetts on Monday. Wednesday they arrested a man they say is an accomplice in the cross country pot-selling scheme. Sgt. Mike Dean said 36-year-old Eva Marie Lyons of Santa Cruz drove to a shipping business on Mount Herman Road where she attempted to ship the package via FedEx. Store employees suspected the package contained narcotics so they opened it per store policy, Dean told the Santa Cruz Sentinel. Inside was a pound of marijuana. Employees called in a description of [...]
Sep 232010
Yes, it’s a party, but not that kind of party. The Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana, or WAMM, has been around long enough that only the most clueless of Santa Cruz locals mention its name in the same breath as Cheech and Chong. The organization’s annual public celebration, known as WAMMfest, will mark its seventh year on Saturday at San Lorenzo Park, the Santa Cruz Sentinel reports. And while WAMM becomes more and more a familiar part of the Santa Cruz landscape, the message that the event is not an excuse for weekend stoners to [...]
Mike Corral sees himself as a master marijuana grower and an “anti-stoner.” Corral, who co-founded Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana with wife Valerie Corral in 1993, is the ever-present teacher in garden for the Santa Cruz cannabis-growing commune. He oversees WAMM members – cancer patients, AIDS sufferers and others with profound medical conditions – in hands-on work in growing the cannabis they use to relieve and soothe their symptoms. WAMM and its poignant community for the disabled, sick and dying is profiled in Sunday’s edition of the Sacramento Bee. To read the article, click here. [...]
SANTA CRUZ – By his count, Don Ivey, 56, should have been dead six times by now. The artisan and former competitive in-line skater survived both a stabbing and a scuba diving accident as a young man. Fifteen years ago, he was diagnosed with AIDS and hepatitis C. Five years ago, he crashed a motorcycle, landing face down, partially paralyzed, in an ocean bay. Recently, just 30 days removed from his second emergency room visit for internal bleeding and vomiting blood, Ivey walked up a terraced marijuana garden that is a medicinal and spiritual refuge [...]
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